Electronic grant applications must be submitted in response to a Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA). NIH issues both Request for Applications (RFAs) and Program Announcements (PAs). Collectively, all these solicitations are referred to as FOAs in Grants.gov.

‘Investigator Initiated’ or ‘unsolicited applications’ are submitted, via Grants.gov, to Parent Announcements that are mechanism (e.g. R01, R21, R44, etc.) specific. Applicants can look for the appropriate Parent opportunity on the Parent Announcements page. Note that NIH includes the word “Parent” in the title of all FOAs that target investigator-initiated applications.

Search the NIH Guide for Grants and Contracts for funding opportunities.

Identify a Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) of interest and click on the FOA number to open the announcement.

Carefully read the announcement. Application packages are opportunity-specific (i.e., you cannot use an application completed for one opportunity to apply for another), so be sure you have chosen the correct FOA before you download and complete the application package.

Click the “Apply for Grant Electronically” button in the FOA. This will direct you to Grants.gov.

Click on “download” from the Grants.gov screen to download the application.

Take this opportunity to sign up for notifications of changes to the application package!

Download the Application Instructions.

Download the Application Package.

Save a copy of the downloaded application to your own computer or network immediately.